Participants in the
Philippine-Belgian anti-sex-trafficking seminar pose for a group
picture.

abanatuan City -- The two-hour drive from Manila
stopped just before an open space of what looks like a rainfed
rice field. On the left side of the road was a small
multi-purpose hall where Nuevo Ecijanos were to debate the
advantages and disadvantages of working abroad. The same hall
would later be witness to their strong resolve to fight against
the trafficking in women for sex.

___On
February 13, around 40 residents from the different towns of
Nueva Ecija, mostly women of various ages, came to Bakud Bayan, a
barrio in Cabanatuan City, to attend the preventive
education/training seminar of the Philippine-Belgian Project
Against Sex Trafficking. Organized by Kalayaan and Sarilaya, two
Manila-based womens NGOs, in cooperation with womens
peasant organizations in Nueva Ecija, the seminar introduced
participants to an active discussion on sex trafficking. As most
participants admitted, it was their "baptism of fire"
as far as the issue is concerned.

___Gregoria
Abad, 68, revealed that when her own daughter invited her to the
seminar, she immediately decided to participate. "I have two
children working overseas," she reasoned. "Whatever I
learned from here will be an added information for me, and I
think this will help in looking after my daughter," she
added. Abads son works as a construction worker in Saudi
Arabia, while her daughter works as domestic helper in Hong Kong.

___Just
before the lecture started, participants were asked what they
felt while on their way to the hall. All of them answered that
they were inconvenienced by the hot weather, and that they wanted
to rest. Asked if they wanted to go abroad so they wouldnt
have to be treading on the same dusty, sun-exposed roads again,
all of them said "yes." But thirty minutes after, they
changed their minds.

___"I
dont want to go abroad anymore," exclaimed Susan
Martinez after the creative presentation on sex trafficking.
Though she never really gave migration a serious thought, she
admitted to have dreamed of going out of the country someday.

___Sex
trafficking as defined by the International Organization for
Migration (IOM), refers to any illicit transporting of migrant
women and/or trading them for economic or personal gain. It
includes the following elements: facilitating the illegal
movement of migrant women to other countries with or without
their consent or knowledge; deceiving migrant women about the
purpose of migration -- legal or illegal, physically or sexually
abusing migrant women for the purpose of trafficking them;
selling women into or trading them for the purpose of employment,
marriage, prostitution, or other forms of profit-making abuse.

___Trafficking
for the purpose of sexual exploitation, according to IOM, is only
one part of the wider trade in women and in human beings in
general. This include both situations where the women are
conscious of the fact that they are being recruited by
traffickers for prostitution, and situations where women are
being deceived.

___"It
is very rampant in Cabanatuan City," explained Angie Magat,
referring to sex trafficking. Magat is the representative of
EMPOWERMENT, a peasant womens organization based in the
area. "Our organization has helped prostituted women who
were made to serve 10-20 customers a day," she continued.
"It has to be stopped. And we believe that by holding this
kind of activities, people will finally wake up to reality and
hopefully, become vigilant to these practices," she added.

___Another
important reason why they want to hold the seminar, according to
Magat, is the rising number of Nuevo Ecijanos, especially women,
working overseas.

___Cherry
Cruz, the lecturer from Kalayaan, discussed the different forms
of sex trafficking, their definitions, the networks of countries
involved, how it can be avoided, and tips on identifying illegal
recruiters. She also organized the participants into workshop
groups where each group was made to provide ways of preventing
sex trafficking at the community level.

___Awareness-raising
through the parents, teachers, or even seminars on the issue
topped the workshop results on ways of preventing sexual
trafficking. After the last groups presentation, Cruz even
encouraged the participants to gossip  a practice of which
rural areas like Bakud Bayan are known for  about sex
trafficking. "It will be a good consciousness-raising
method," quipped Cruz.

___One
very interesting activity was the debate on the pros and cons of
migration. The participants were group into two and were each
assigned a side of the issue. Those who wanted to go abroad have
reasons ranging from the serious (to help their family
financially, to be able to send their kids to school, to help the
countrys economy, to be able to save money for a start-up
capital) to the light ones (to marry a foreigner, to tour around
the world, to have a lighter skin, to buy imported appliances).
Those against migration reasoned that they dont want to
risk their lives in foreign countries, to be separated from their
families, and experience racial discrimination, among others.

___To the
delight of everybody, the debate turned into a balagtasan
(a Filipino poetic exchange of words) of sorts, with the players
dramatizing the virtues of overseas migration on one side, and
the other, exposing the evils of overseas migration. But as they
all agreed afterwards, migration may be an inevitable process for
many of them.

___"Whether
we like it or not, theres just not enough opportunities
here," said participant Pedro Lopez. "While we
definitely would not want to see our daughters, sisters,
relatives or even wives sexually trafficked by greedy recruiters,
we cannot also stop them from going where they think they would
prosper economically," he conceded.

___But
thats not the end of the issue. As Lopez added: "What
we can do, however, is to try to demand some form of support from
the government, reminding our officials that they are supposed to
provide us with job opportunities."